It's JUST a COMPUTER

[PepperElf]

The only guess I had at the time was that they saw me wearing a cheap hat that vaguely resembled Donald Duck's head and mistook me for the actual costumed employee.

Either that or they thought it was cool.

When my boyfriend & I were in the north part of Japan where you don't see many Americans or Gaijin... a small group of school girls were looking at us and giggling. Not rudely mind you, more like shy schoolgirls.



and photographs of the urinals eh?
(useless without pics?)

[Chantilly]

My best friend, who is Chinese-American, had one of her relatives come to America for a visit when I was about 9. She didn't speak English. I went over there to hang out and when this woman saw me, she grabbed a handful of my hair and started excitedly talking. My friend told me that her relative had never seen someone with blonde hair before and she was very excited about it. Rock on, I guess.

Something like that happened to my best friend. She lives in Australia, and a few years ago she brought her three very blond young sons back to the states for a family reunion. Her flight had a stopover in Tokyo, and she said all the Japanese people seated around them on the plane were fascinated by her boys. They were taking pictures and fawning over them, offering them sweets, and touching their hair! Luckily it didn't freak the boys out and they were occupied enough by their neighbors that she was able to relax for a little while (she did have to put the kibosh on the sweets though).

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

One time at work, I was doing my normal big important work things when this group of girls came up to me and posed with me as a picture was taken.

Then they told me it was for a scavenger hunt, thanked me and left.

[StarSong]

When I was younger and my father would mow the lawn, the tourists would take pictures of him mowing the lawn, or they would take pictures of themselves pretending to mow the lawn.

You guys should have charged 'em $20 per picture, $35 if they wanted to pose with the lawnmower, and $50 if they actually wanted to mow the lawn.

[Hobbs]

Recently, my Air Force detachment was taking its photo on the steps of the central courtyard of my school. There were some Japanese/Chinese (at the least, Asian) tourists that started taking our pictures. Those of us who noticed were like but we couldn't really do anything about it.

Plus, it was a buncha cute girls, so most of us didn't mind at all ^__<

[Lingering Grin]

Recently, my Air Force detachment was taking its photo on the steps of the central courtyard of my school. There were some Japanese/Chinese (at the least, Asian) tourists that started taking our pictures. Those of us who noticed were like but we couldn't really do anything about it.

Plus, it was a buncha cute girls, so most of us didn't mind at all ^__<

i take it you were all in uniform? if so... that's probably why they were interested.

i would be too

[Hobbs]

i take it you were all in uniform? if so... that's probably why they were interested.

i would be too

Well, I must say...I do look rather dashing in my blues.

[Metody]

When I was little, Mom and Dad took us on a trip to Washington DC to see the museums.

I was seven and my sister was six. We were nearly identical - very small for our age, and we had blond hair down to our waists. We both wore glasses that gave us an adorable baby geek sort of look. We looked like Barbie's little sister.

While we were at the Space Museum, a whole group of Asian tourists took photos of us. I think I was the only one who noticed - my sister was too busy looking at the planes. The only reason my attention had wandered was that I was trying to distract myself from the crushingly disapointing news that the US Space Flight museum didn't have any quantum torpedos, like on Star Trek.

[AnaKhouri]

When I visited Japan a couple people asked to take pictures with me. I thought it was funny, and had my husband take the same pictures so now me and some random Japanese strangers have identical pictures.

I also took pics there of ordinary things, like vending machines and pay phones. I took pics of EVERYTHING because I was just so excited to be there. We also took pictures of a random wedding at a Shinto shrine, but tons of other people were also taking pictures (family and friends as well as a ton of tourists) so I didn't feel too bad.

I do think it is only polite to ask before you take pictures of someone, though.

[atomicthumbs]

Look, an American!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Closest experience I had to something like this was when I went to a Ring of Honor wrestling show in Philly. For this particular show, they'd flown in a bunch of the top stars from the Pro Wrestling NOAH promotion in Japan. One of said stars was actually the boss and champion of NOAH, Mitsuharu Misawa.

Me being the kind of guy I am, I made a couple of signs to take to the show, one of which had, in Japanese characters, "Arigatou NOAH." During intermission, the NOAH guys were signing autographs, so as I get up to go get my poster signed, I pass some Japanese people who were apparently with the NOAH people. One of them saw my sign, stopped me, and pointed to his camera. I obligingly smiled, held up the sign and gave a thumbs up for the picture.

I've not seen the picture turn up on any websites (as far as I know), but I just find it kinda cool that me and my sign are in some Japanese dude's photo album somewhere.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Look, an American!

That could be. To them, we're like the way some of us would see an alien . . . totally different yet totally fascinating.

Why I would be fascinating to anyone I'll never know . . . I could try to blend in with a crowd but nobody would notice me. Much better overall to stay in the corner - you get the best seat - but I digress.

That's the only reason I can think of why foreigners seem to like to take random pictures. Kinda like how some people drive by my house and they'll be all pressed up against the car window with deerlights as if they can't believe they actually see someone out on their front porch.

I so want to tell them "That's what we do on this planet. I guess you're not used to seeing Earthlings where you're from."

[karma_gypsy]

you guys like Dollar bills... you could have some of mine... the way things are going they won't be worth much anyway

Buh-zzzing!




Good one.

[Darkwish]

I've been asked to hold the camera and take pictures before, but nobody has ever tried to take my picture. I guess I'm just so ugly that they're afraid it'll break the camera.

[Chanlin]

I snapped pics and short video clips all over the campus at the University of Toledo for a communications video project and no one even glanced at me twice.

I've never had my picture taken but I've taken pictures for tourists quite a bit, mostly at the Wright Patterson Air force Museum in Dayton OH.